With Oregon State's 27-21 upset of USC standing as a reminder of how dangerous picking conference games can be, here are the rest of week's picks:

No. 25 Fresno State at UCLA. More than 20,000 Fresno fans expected at Rose Bowl. Bulldogs, 31-21.

Colorado State at California. Road team has won previous two meetings. Cal, 35-17.

Oregon at Washington State. Quarterback troubles cancel each other out. Oregon, 40-10.

Stanford at Washington. Might be now-or-never for Willingham and Huskies. UW, 26-24.

Last week: 4-2 (including OSU-USC).
Season: 24-6.
UW games: 3-0.

In our final meeting with coach Tyrone Willingham before Saturday, the coach acknowledged that Stanford is a big game ... but not for the reason you might expect.

"I’ve made it clear that we have a very good conference and it’s been good for a long time," Willingham said. "But in a lot of those years the champion has had one loss. We’ve got ours already. There’s no room for us to error. So we have to understand that if we’re a team that’s going to get back in this thing, I think everyone would say right now – across the country they’re saying it: SC seems to be the clear leader. Other than that you could say maybe anyone could emerge in those other spots. So we’d like to be in one of those spots."

A few other Willingham notes:

Receiver Chancellor Young, who was spotted on crutches this week, has a knee bruise expected to keep him out at least a couple of weeks.

True freshman DT Craig Noble is practicing, but is being brought along slowly to avoid injury since he had no training camp.

Willingham said he also doesn't expect true freshmen WR Cody Bruns, WR Anthony Boyles or TB Terrance Dailey to make their college debuts this week.

Safety Victor Aiyewa remains out with a groin injury doctor's apparently haven't fully figured out.

Tailback Chris Polk had shoulder surgery Wednesday, is expected out of the hospital today and should be ready for spring practice.

Matt Houston is expected to start ahead of Joshua Gage at linebacker Saturday, although both will play.

And finally, receiver Curtis Shaw, who left the team in August for personal reasons, was spotted watching practice Thursday.

ESPN has announced that it will tipoff the coming college basketball season Nov. 18 with 23 hours of coverage featuring teams from 14 conferences ... none of them named the Pacific-10 Conference.

(Nov. 18 is the day that the Washington Huskies will play their home-opener, hosting Cleveland State in the first round of the College Basketball Experience tournament, which concludes the following week in Kansas City.)

Otherwise, though, it sounds like fun.

Here's the news release:

ESPN will celebrate the start of the 2008-09 college basketball season with the new College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon featuring 23 consecutive hours of live college basketball game and studio programming Tuesday, Nov. 18. The new creative way to mark the opening of the season will begin at midnight ET with a tripleheader of live games: Massachusetts at Memphis followed by Fresno State at St. Mary’s at 2 a.m. and Idaho State at Hawaii at 4 a.m. Coverage will conclude with Kentucky at North Carolina at 9 p.m.

ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU will offer 33 total hours of coverage overall highlighted by 14 game telecasts, including defending national champion Kansas on ESPNU at 9 p.m. ESPN360.com will offer a simulcast of every ESPN and ESPN2 telecast.

ESPN’s College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon highlights include:

· The first of ESPN’s nine game telecasts will feature current Memphis coach John Calipari, a participant in last year’s NCAA Tournament Championship game, against Massachusetts, where he coached from 1988-96 and led the Minutemen to their only NCAA Final Four appearance.

· ESPN’s coverage will conclude at 9 p.m. with a showdown between the two winningest teams in college basketball history when Kentucky visits North Carolina, which returns all five starters -- including National Player of the Year Tyler Hansbrough – to a team that made it to last year’s Final Four.

· College GameDay will originate from Chapel Hill, N.C., site of Kentucky at North Carolina (televised on ESPN at 9 p.m.), for a one-hour show at 8 p.m.

· In addition to games at midnight, 2 a.m., 4 a.m. and 9 p.m., ESPN will televise five live games consecutively beginning at 10 a.m.

· ESPN’s coverage will include a game played in five different United States time zones -- Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific and Hawaiian – and at least 14 different conferences (Big Ten, Big 12, BIG EAST, SEC, ACC, Atlantic 10, Conference USA, WAC, WCC, Big Sky, Ivy, Colonial, Big South and Summit).

·ESPN’s 2 p.m. telecast will feature Iowa at Kansas in a women’s matchup.

·Coverage will include the College Hoops Tip-Off Special, a live four-hour studio show originating from ESPN’s studios in Charlotte, N.C., beginning at 6 a.m.

·In addition to the College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon coverage on ESPN, ESPN2 will televise a tripleheader of 2008 NIT Season Tip-Off matchups beginning at 7:30 p.m. ESPNU will offer a doubleheader beginning with a NIT Season Tip-Off game at 7 p.m. followed by a CBE Classic game at 9 p.m. featuring defending National Champion Kansas.

Last season's Pac-10 TV schedule called for 48 games nationally available on FSN, five nationally or regionally on CBS, four regionally on ABC, at least 23 appearances on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU, and one on CSTV.

The Pac-10's 2008-09 TV schedule should be released over the next week or two.